A guide to grocery delivery in St. Louis

grocery delivery

Ask any parent, and they'll probably rank grocery shopping next to changing stinky diapers on their list of favorite parenting chores. Thankfully, grocery delivery service has made it to the St. Louis area, so parents can delegate this unpleasant task to a professional shopper. Here's how:

Walmart Grocery Pickup

How it works: Walmart offers its own curbside pickup service at select locations. Its service is free but lacks delivery. You can order and pay for your groceries online, select a pickup time, and they will load your groceries when you get to the store. Your kids don’t even have to unbuckle.

Tips: The Walmart website lists items by what’s trending or by department. It’s quicker to do a search, but you need to be exact. A search for "bread" listed over 100 sandwich breads, but not fresh bakery bread or frozen Texas Toast. We found both of these when we got more descriptive.

The system doesn't limit your shopping to grocery items. We put the search bar to the test and found most of the inventory was available for pickup, from beer to office supplies. They seem to draw the line at more personal items, such as bath towels, clothes, and greeting cards. We're thinking about giving Walmart our back-to-school shopping list (and letting them find those red, two-pocket folders without prongs).

Walmart advertises same-day pickup, but you'll need to set your order pretty early to grab a spot. Your best bet is to plan your shopping pickup the next day or later in the week.

How to get started: Log in at Walmart Grocery Pickup's website. Type in your zip code, and the site will tell you which of Walmart's 11 participating locations is closest: Manchester, Arnold, Festus, High Ridge, Washington, Lake Saint Louis, St. Peters, Collinsville, Wood River, or Belleville.

Minimum order: $30

Service fee: None

Pricing: Same as in store

Alcohol: Yes (show ID on pickup)

Coupons: No

Pickup time: 8 a.m.–8 p.m. Seven days a week

Instacart

How it works: Instacart is the real hero for St. Louis parents. This third-party service has teamed up with Schnucks, Straub’s, Shop ’n Save, Whole Foods, Costco, and Petco. Instacart covers the entire metro area from Wentzville to Belleville and Arnold to Alton, but you still need to be within driving distance of your desired store.

Tips: The Instacart website looks the same for any store you select, with the same glossy photos of avocados and canned goods. Like Walmart, you can buy almost anything the store stocks, from a single apple to a box of soap. Their search engine is more encompassing than Walmart's: A search for "bread" brought up six pages of bread, buns, rolls, garlic knots, taco shells, and even bread and butter pickles. Filters on the sidebar let your sort by brand, type of food, and sales.

Instacart pricing is the average in-store price, so you'll pay about the same as if you went yourself. It's important to note that you're paying Instacart, not your local grocery store. On our test shop, Instacart put a hold on our account for $70, about $12 more than the final tally, to allow for substitutions or unexpected price changes.

Instacart makes life easy for comparison shoppers, but that doesn't mean you can cherry pick the best price from each location, unless you want to place several orders and pay separate delivery fees.

Keep an eye on your phone after placing an order. Instacart will text you with updates as your shopper gets to work. If something is out of stock, your shopper will ask permission to make a substitution. When the order is complete, you'll get an estimated delivery time, and after the delivery, you'll get a final receipt and a handy tipping chart if you want to add a tip electronically.

How to get started: See what Instacart can deliver to your house by logging in on Instacart's website and entering your zip code.

Minimum order: $10

Delivery fee: $6–12 per trip, $14.99 a month, or $149 a year.

Service fee: 10 percent, plus tip (both optional)

Pricing: Average in-store price (except Costco)

Alcohol: No

Coupons: Instacart coupons only

Delivery time: Within 2 hours. Times vary with each store. Seven days a week.

Groceries to Go

How it works: Dierbergs has been using the same third-party personal shopping service since 1999. It's an old-school system that predates online shopping. Just call or email Groceries to Go, and they'll call you back to go over your shopping list. Easy peasy.

Tips: You can place orders Monday–Thursday, and deliveries are made the next day for anyone east of I-270. If you live west of I-270, deliveries are made on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They only cover St. Louis City and County and parts of St. Charles. Groceries to Go only accepts cash or checks, and they will take coupons.

How to get started: Call Groceries to Go at 314-842-0109 if you're interested in their service.

Minimum order: None listed

Delivery fee: $12.95

Service Fee: 15 percent

Pricing: In-store price

Coupons: Yes

Delivery time: Next day. Deliveries made before 2 p.m.

Green BEAN Delivery

How it works: If we’re talking about grocery delivery, we should mention Green BEAN, which has been delivering fresh produce to St. Louis for several years. Unlike the services tied to local stores, Green BEAN mostly delivers in-season fruit and vegetables fresh from the farm. Their service includes some dairy, meat, and eggs.

Tips: Green BEAN is more of a subscription service, where you commit to a weekly or bi-weekly delivery. You select the size bin that suits your needs and pay a flat rate. Each week, Green BEAN loads your bin with whatever produce is in season, then gives you a chance to accept or make adjustments. If you don’t check the system before delivery, they send the default order.

Green BEAN's bins are well insulated and include ice packs, so you don’t need to be home at delivery time. Just leave last week’s bin out for the delivery crew to recycle to avoid paying a recovery fee.